Suicide and the Arts: From the Death of Ajax to Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe (IN: Suicide and the Creative Arts, edited by S Stack & D Lester)

This chapter focuses on the iconography of suicide in Western art. A discussion is first presented on how the subject of suicide in Western history, literature, mythology, & religion has been reflected in the mirror of the arts. Major themes in the Western iconography of suicide over the last three millennia are then reviewed. The second part of the chapter is devoted to personal stories of suicide in the artists’ lives, including both artists as survivors & artists who died by suicide. An appendix provides a list of artists who died by suicide. (74 refs.)